Why Writing About Fashion on the Internet Is the Worst and the Best

Amy Odell and I wrote about fashion on the Internet before the Facebook algorithm or the Kardashians were things that anyone paid close attention to. Odell was the defining, biting voice of New York Magazine's then-new fashion blog, The Cut. In 2010, I left my post as a features reporter at the New York Daily News to immerse myself in all things fashion at Fashionista. The independent fashion blog playing field was small and you knew everyone on it—there was Jenna Sauers at Jezebel, Racked, and us.

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There weren't many rules then. When Faran Krentcil started Fashionista, she snuck into shows. We used to scan in magazine spreads that we liked and then post them on the Internet, oftentimes at the urging of the Indie mags that published them. Odell used to run a feature exposing the worst (and best) of fashion mags. What lawsuits?

Fast forward seven years and Odell has just released her first book, Tales From the Back Row, about her time covering the fashion industry for The Cut. As the start of the spring/summer 2016 fashion season ushers in another round of breathless fashion coverage, I thought I'd ask Odell about how writing about fashion on the Internet has changed, if at all. Is it less snarky? Is that a good thing? Has the fashion industry embraced the Internet? Will it ever?

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Here, an unfiltered conversation with one of the first Internet writers to write about fashion in an unfiltered way.

Leah Chernikoff: There's a chapter where you talk about Rachel Zoe's publicist calling you up to ask if your story is going to be snarky. And you were like, "Obviously."

Amy Odell: What can I say?

Writing on the Internet then [2004 to 2008]—and Gawker sort of pioneered this voice—was all about the snark. How did that influence the way you write about fashion, if at all?

When I started at The Cut, Jessica Pressler and Chris Rovzar were doing Daily Intel. I think Dan Kois and Lane Brown were at Vulture. I was surrounded by super hilarious, talented writers and my goal was to fit into NYMag.com. So when I got to The Cut I was like, "In order for this to be successful, I need to be up to snuff." I think that was really what influenced the voice of The Cut, which became my voice as a writer.

And how would you describe that voice that you took on?

I thought New York was hilarious and pithy. I thought that they pointed out the irony of the news they were writing about. I tried to do the same thing at The Cut. I'm not sure the same approach worked with fashion because there was a lot of pressure not to offend anybody, and that's a little bit different than if you're writing about Obama. It's like, who cares if you offend Obama? I think fashion, or I think that I felt at the time, that fashion was used to being treated with kid gloves. A publicist who I worked with at The Cut recently emailed me recently to say, "Congratulations on your book. I'm really excited for you. Between you and me, my boss never liked what you wrote on The Cut but I always thought it was so great."

How does that make you feel? Were you surprised by that? Was that a reaction you got a lot while you were there?

I was surprised when I first started just because I was so young. I was 22 and I never had done anything like this before. I wasn't used to managing the world. You know, navigating publicists. I just wasn't used to it.

A PR agency once threatened to ban me from all their clients.

That happened to me too!

And they were all really important clients. We're probably talking about the same agency.

They come to you and they say, "We hate this blog post," and you probably spent ten minutes on it and didn't think anything of it. I once blogged something from the New York Times about a designer, and a PR firm emailed me a very nasty a note to say, "I can't believe you posted this. If you continue to spread these rumors, you will be uninvited from all of our events." And that would have been like half of the events in the fashion industry. ...

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The Internet is a scary place. I remember my editor at New York would say that blogging is not only very hard, but also very scary. It's so true because people can just get mad in mass numbers and descend upon you. You never see it coming. If you did, it wouldn't happen.

Were there any experiences where that happened to you?

So haul vlogging had just become like a thing, which is so funny to think about now. I ended up doing a post about it [on The Cut] and I was like, why would people do this? These people need lives and cats. I would never say that now, but I was like this is ridiculous to go shopping at the mall and make a 10-minute video about what you bought. People got really mad and I had to apologize. When I apologized, some of the commenters were like, "What?" because they were just used to me being all whatever. It's good when stuff like that happens to you because you learn from it. I don't regret that happening because I learned something from it.

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Your book is called 'Tales From the Back Row.' When Fashionista started, the editors used to sneak into shows. That was their access. Then by the time I left, there were front row seats at some shows. So is fashion ever going to fully accept digital? Do they have to?

I felt my access definitely got better over the time I was at New York. I feel designer and publicists and companies that come to the shows are fixated on the outlet almost, more than who you are. When I went to Buzzfeed, my access was bad, and I had been getting pretty good access. But Buzzfeed was so new. No one understood it. If you look at that site, nothing about it said fashion whatsoever. If you're a high designer label, you don't need to be on a site like that. You need to be on New York Mag. You need to reach people who might buy your stuff, I guess.

So they had to get to you, and it seems that some people were a bit scared of you.

Yeah, probably. I was certainly scared of them too, though. Fashion is scary.

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What made it scary?

It's definitely intimidating. I talk a lot in the book about, "What do you wear?"

I think was one of the things I was most surprised about. You're tall. You're pretty. You'd think that like dressing the part would come easy. It's something I struggle with, too.

Yeah, it's hard. You have to toe the line now to when you go to a show between looking cool and not like you just showed up to get photographed, since that has become very uncool. I think there's a lot of delusion surrounding street style.

You think it's warranted?

You know, I don't really care. I think it's great. Where else are you going to wear those clothes? To fashion shows!

Kathleen Kamphausen

You manage a big team now—and that involves dressing the part. It's interesting to know that someone like you or me still struggles with that. What do I wear to work today? What's going to be appropriate? What's going to convey the right message?

Leather pants are the greatest. Leather pants. Can't go wrong. The problem is in the summer. Leather shorts? When I started as an editor at 22, I was like a fetus. I didn't know what to wear. I'm from Austin, Texas where it's like a short and a T-shirt and you're good to go. It's not a fashionable place.

And when you were growing up, you weren't like, "I'm going to work in fashion."

No, not at all. I loved magazines. I loved fashion magazines. I loved clothes. I loved shopping, but I had no concept of what fashion actually was. I think it was harder to understand when growing up because we didn't really have the Internet the way we do now.

You just had magazines and the mall.

When did the fashion blogs start? Not when I was 13. I would read women's magazines. I didn't have to get the newest issue of Numero or anything ... I didn't really know what fashion was, and it took me a while to figure it out. I think you figure it out by osmosis, by being around a lot of people.

How do you feel like fashion coverage online has changed since you were writing for The Cut?

I think there's a lot more coverage now, don't you?

Yeah, there's more out there. Do you think that's a good thing? Do you think it's too noisy? Is it the more the merrier?

I think it's good because the more there is, the more competition there is and the better the content has to be. The Business of Fashion has been such a force.

Yeah it's amazing. What's the place for print in fashion?

I don't see online doing editorial photo shoots that print magazines do, and I love looking at those pictures.

Are there elements of fashion that you still find ridiculous?

Absolutely. But it doesn't mean I don't love it. It's fun. I feel like I take it more like a fact now, rather than getting emotional about some of the industry's idiosyncrasies. I can just kind of laugh at, like if something happens, I can laugh at it and be like "Oh fashion," and not get upset about it. Runway looks are not to be worn. I say in the book now, if you dropped a fashion person in the middle of the country, they would look completely out of place just about everywhere.

What's something that you don't miss about being as involved in fashion?

I don't missing having to write 10 to 15 posts a day. It's just so hard. People don't realize how hard it is. I don't miss that. I don't miss worrying about getting into fashion shows. I really don't miss being made to feel like a second-class citizen. You go to a fashion event, or red carpet events too, you're trying to meet a celebrity or a designer and you're waiting to matter. I've been waiting in line to interview a designer and they're like, "You're next," then other people come up and this person is going before you. You're standing there for 30 minutes just waiting to matter. I don't miss that.

How has being a part of Cosmo changed your voice or the impressions you've had about writing for women before?

You know what I think I learned when I got to Cosmo? Women want great reading content and you can't sell women short. I feel like we worked really hard to establish a really fun, irreverent voice. I found the most talented writers I could possibly find and we've done really great reporting and essays on such a wide range of topics from celebrities to politics to LGBTQ issues. I mean, what I've really seen is that great content rises to the top.

And the Kardashians.

Yes, people will click on a Kylie Jenner post. But, great stuff always does well for us.